


First Loves; Second Chances

by Glinda



Series: Siblings of Stormhold [1]
Category: Stardust (2007)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They shared no secrets and told each other no lies; perhaps it was better this way, loving from a distance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Loves; Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt Dunstan/Una - second time lucky, at smallfandomfest 06.

Princess Una of Stormhold, eldest child and only daughter of the King of Stormhold, decided at a young age that she wasn’t having any children. It wasn’t that she didn’t like children; she loved all seven of her younger brothers dearly, even if they were always trying to murder each other. It was just that, well, if she had any sons they would spend their adolescence either trying to murder each other or trying not to be murdered by their siblings or cousins, and while any daughters would be safe from the family’s somewhat homicidal inheritance scheme they could never be Queen. It had all seemed ridiculous to her at the age of ten and by the time she was twenty and their mother’s recent death had freed up Septimus – always with the poisons, worrying in one so very young - to start seriously threatening Secondus in the homicidal maniac stakes, she was heartily sick of it. Unable to bear to watch them slaughter each other and equally unable to stop them, apparently the only thing they _wouldn’t_ do for their sister, Una felt she had no choice. She fled.

The sole advantage that she could see from having grown up in such murderous circumstances was that she had some useful skills for surviving outside the castle walls that not many princesses could lay claim to. She was rather adept at avoiding falling axes, it is surprisingly easy to become light on one’s feet when the alternative is large lump of sharp metal to the head. While it was considered bad form in the family to kill female relatives, accidents happened and her father, for all his faults, had taught her well in certain specialised areas. She was an expert when it came to poisons and their antidotes and while he had claimed that it would be unseemly for her to use a sword he had taught her to be quite handy with a dagger. Una had never actually sought adventure; having had more than enough of that growing up, what she’d sought was normality and safety. Adventure had an unfortunate tendency to find her.

She should have known better than to trust Sal. Well, she hadn’t trusted Sal at all, but it had been a long night – the business with those goblins and the unicorn had been rather trying - and it was raining and perhaps Una hadn’t watched her words quite as well as she should have done. So here she was, trapped in servitude until the bitter old hag died. Magic, trickier than poison and twice as deadly, the one gap in her store of useful knowledge held her faster than any fortress. No choice for it, she would just have to learn. Sal was hardly the best teacher and no more willing to part with her secrets than any of the rest of her kind, but she was lazy and easily convinced to provide any knowledge that might put more weight on Una and less on Sal’s own shoulders. It wasn’t much but it was almost enough to let Una forget that there could never be enough for escape.

Sal had cast a spell on her; early in Una’s servitude that Sal had gleefully told her would prevent her carrying a child. It had been all Una could do to prevent her relief showing, she would no more wish her life on a child than she would wish her family’s curse upon any babe. Sal had seen too many of her contemporaries killed by the vengeful children of their slaves. Lovers, she assured Una, would abandon you; kin seek revenge. For all that Sal called Una ‘Slattern’, most of her mistress’ pleasure had been in the inaccuracy of the insult, she had gone abed with very few men. Most of those who weren’t too afraid of Sal were also not the kind she would wish to lay with. She flirts often but keeps her heart safely to herself; lovers will abandon her and her kin do not know where she is to exact revenge.

The human boy is different. Visitors from Wall are rare indeed these days so his difference is to be treasured. His name is Dunstan and she thinks he couldn’t be more human if he tried. His nervousness towards Sal is simply that towards a particularly cranky old woman, he has no pretensions of heroism but he would rescue her if he could. She discovers that his world has been ruled by logic and science until today; that he is half confounded by this magical other world that should not possibly exist. It should be irritating but instead she finds it rather endearing. They do not share secrets, nor tell each other lies; talking instead of the different stories they know of the stars and the dreams they will never chase. Lying beside him she feels a brief pang of regret that she cannot keep this one. She puts it aside, better to enjoy this stolen moment, hiding from the crushingly mundane lives to which they both must soon return. Instead she indulges a brief moment of gratefulness towards Sal, Princess Una of Stormhold would not even have been allowed this much with this boy. In the morning he wakes her with a kiss and an apology as he takes his leave and she knows that she will remember him in years to come with a smile and not a single regret.

Sal rants and raves and curses her for hours, but though there is fear in Una’s heart it is not of Sal, but for the fate of the unborn child that she should not be able to carry. There will be no orphanage for this child, they are agreed on that, she will send her child to Wall, to an ordinary life and he will know nothing of this world. Even as she writes her letter to her tiny son, grieving already for the years they will not share, she takes a moment to feel triumphant over her father. Tristan will be the last male heir of the Stormhold bloodline. All her brothers’ murderous machinations will come to nothing, for he will be safe in Wall.

~ ~

In the end it is not Tristan who frees her from Sal. Sal falls afoul of Lamia, a witch queen of notorious power, but Tristan is bound up in her rescue, for it is the star he rescued who destroys Lamia. She gets her long held wish, to see one of her siblings alive again, and the last of her brothers even looks pleased to see her. She gets to see him fight alongside his nephew, even though he never knows Tristan’s identity, and she sees him die. Her heart aches for the youngest of her brothers, as she watches Lamia use his body as a puppet, even though she knows with certainty that he would have killed both Tristan and Yvaine without thought or regret. They give her space to cry over his body, to grieve the other six brothers whose graves she will likely never see. They seem to understand. How strange it will be, she thinks, to have family once more and one that does not seek each other’s death.

Tristan must return to Wall, his precipitous return when he realised what would happen to Yvaine if she followed him across had prevented him from saying farewell to his father. Unable to accompany him, Yvaine wants little more than some peace, quiet and a bath, and encourages Una to accompany him instead. Insisting that the two of them have a lifetime to get to know each other, while this may be Una’s only chance to see the town where her son grew up. There is truth to Yvaine’s words and Una uses the warmth at the thought that they want her to be part of their family to distract her from her fears. She has often longed to see the world beyond the Wall, not to stay, just to see for a little while the place where both Dunstan and Tristan had grown up. For so long these dreams have been bound up with seeing Tristan again, to walk the streets Dunstan had described one night so long ago. To watch her son at play and have him run to her arms in glee. A dream that could never be. Yet now she can have that dream, a little changed but realer for that. She isn’t quite sure that she can bear to see Dunstan again. She can tell from Tristan’s stories that his father, like she has him, has drawn her as an ideal: a perfect love, lost to fate. Better to leave them both with their memories and dreams she thinks.

She walks the streets of Wall on her son’s arm, seeing the sights, such as they are, the landmarks and characters that populate the landscape of his childhood. He murmurs secrets and anecdotes about the people they meet and pass, proudly introducing her to people as his mother from beyond the Wall. Their eyes are filled with curiosity, delight, fear, envy and resentment, how he has stood this small town world she doesn’t know, but she does understand entirely why his father sought escape from it. They part to allow him to speak with his father, time she intends to spend exploring the town further, taking pleasure in the rumours and disruption her presence causes. Naturally the next corner she walks around, finds her almost colliding with the one person she has sought to avoid. She almost doesn’t recognise him in the handsome man he has grown into, voice calm and steady now, as he apologises for his rudeness, that for a moment she had looked like someone he’d known so long ago. She knows she should take this opportunity and her leave, pass on and out of his life, but she cannot resist reaching up to touch his cheek one last time. She lets him kiss her because a small rebellious part of her insists that they are owed this.

There are so many tales to tell, and in the end Dunstan accompanies them through the wall, to meet Yvaine. _The Slaughtered Prince_ offers solid food and good though cheap wine to share laughter, stories of adventure and tall tales that are none the less true. Tristan and Yvaine retire to bed, with much laughter and blushing, so Una and Dunstan take advantage of their absence to sit too close, drink too much wine and laugh raucously over the foolish things Tristan did as a child. Una is free, her son will be King of Stormhold without spilling a drop of family blood and has found someone to love and be loved by in return, and all that she had hoped for has come to be. Perhaps that’s what breaks her resolve, to take his hand and lead him to a bed that is hardly the best or the comfiest in the world but better by far then the last one they shared. They make each other no promises, nor do they speak of the lovers who may or may not have shared their beds in the meantime. Here and now they are together and happy and that’s enough for now.

In the morning the fair is in full swing and she finds him watching it from their window. He tells her his employer owes him a holiday and that he’d like to share it with her. So she takes his hand and resolves to keep him for just a little longer.

They walk through the fair, Tristan and Yvaine somewhere ahead of them and remember the fair where they first met. There is laughter and smell of roasting hog in the air, he buys her a trinket and she feels for a moment as though they are Tristan’s age once more. Stealing back the love affair they never had, from a world too real for happy endings.

His voice is tinged with regret when he tells Tristan that unlike him he has a job and obligations in their world, he cannot just disappear. She doesn’t judge him for it, she will see him again at the wedding, and after that they will both put their memories of the time they stole from the world aside and live the separate lives the fates have dealt them. She kisses him lightly on the cheek, gives him a genuine smile and walks away with the certainty that, if only for the briefest time, someone had loved her with all their heart. It is far more than she ever thought to have.

Una walks the castle halls with firm and purposeful steps, this is her home and it is no longer trying to kill her. Things are changing in Stormhold and there many as do not approve, but she is done with taking orders and biting her tongue, she will bend these courtiers to her will and they will fall at Tristan’s feet with gratitude when he is finally crowned. She takes pleasure in watching Tristan and Yvaine settle into their partnership, finding their balance and style. They will make a good pairing, a balanced set of rulers: him gentle and conciliatory with a core of steel, her cold and distant with the warmest of hearts. There is much for Tristan to learn, much that he doesn’t understand, least of all what exactly is going on between his parents. He is a hopeless romantic, like his father once was she suspects, and cannot understand that a fairytale love like the one he found is rare. Yvaine on the other hand has watched the world for centuries; she knows the price that stories take, the coldness of the world, the cruelty of fate. Yet she passes no comment, merely smiles a strange sort of the smile and keeps her own counsel. Una dismisses such romanticism and gets on with the business of reforming the governing of Stormhold; she can never be Queen but she’s bound and determined that the next time the eldest child of the King of Stormhold is a girl, she will be.

When she looks out of the tower one day and sees a familiar figure on the road, she does not rush to meet it. He said he would return for the wedding and he has, just a little earlier than expected. Nothing to get flustered about, he couldn’t be certain how long it would take him to make the journey and he wouldn’t miss his son’s wedding for the world. She busies herself with the tasks she’d planned for that day, by chance finishing at such a time that means she walks out into the courtyard just as Dunstan arrives at the gates. If her heart lifts a little at the sight of him or her smile grows less tired, it is only natural when she is thinking of another night they might steal. He puts down his suitcase, the better to swing her off her feet, as though, she accuses him laughing, they were both teenagers. It’s been a long journey for him, so she steals his suitcase over his objections, and takes his hand as they walk into the castle. He talks of the job he’d done efficiently and loyally every day since he’d returned to Wall the first time, and how he hated every last minute of it. She laughs at him a little for serving out his notice down to the minute, but mainly concentrates on avoiding thinking about the way their arms slide round each other and her head fits on his shoulder when she laughs at his joking objection to Tristan getting all the adventures. She will keep this one after all she decides. If the world won’t give them a happy ending, they’ll just have to steal one for themselves.


End file.
